Thursday, December 04, 2003
Mushroomies®: The Breakfast of Champignons
The smell of disillusionment wafted through the air. Roger caught a whiff and thought, "Hmmm, something's not right here." He got up from his armhair armchair and walked into the kitchen. Sure enough, the smell was coming from the onion soup, which was not nearly as savory as he had once dreamed it could be. This sort of thing had been happening to him too often lately, and this latest occurrence was more than he could take. He strode to the window, flung it open, pitched the pot of soup right out, and yelled above the screams of the now-burnt crowds below, "Enough! I'm tired of things not turning out the way I wanted them to! The Penguin's Curse must be broken!"
Some background, I suppose, is needed here. A few years previous, Roger had been the propietor of Antarctica's first chili diner. His divine recipe, with its tender meat, tasty broth, firm pasta, and unforgettable blend of spices that packed a punch and kept you coming back for more, was a favorite of research scientists and wildlife for miles around. But the out-of-this-world taste available only at Roger's was the object of intense hatred and jealousy from the greatest penguin witch doctor in history, Karen. She would come to the diner every day, never ordering anything, and she would sit in a booth in the corner and brood, shooting hateful glances over the counter at Roger. He knew she had some sort of problem with him, but he didn't want to bring it up, since she looked so forbidding and was a penguin. On the day he premiered his new "Glacier-melting Hot" recipe, something happened that let him know he had crossed the line. He walked into the kitchen to check on the soup, and when he looked into the cauldron, there was a large penguin sitting there in place of the chili! His first thought, of course, was that the penguin had eaten his entire batch, but upon closer inspection, it was actually a penguin-shaped culinary effigy! Before his eyes, the penguin melted into the blandest-tasting puddle of disappointment Roger had ever set tongue on. From that day on, Roger could make no more chili without the same sinister goop magically replacing it. He was forced to close up shop, move back to the states, and get a job extracting peanut chunks from chunky peanut butter to make smooth. But every single day after work, he tried to shake the Penguin's Curse, branching out into different varieties of soup, even going as far as fondue, spaghetti sauce, and on one occasion, a pot of boiling water with a chunk of styrofoam in it. But every recipe wound up the same, until the day it came to a head.
"The Penguin's Curse must be broken!" screamed Roger to the cold grey sky outside his apartment window. And without warning, Karen floated up from the ground below to Roger's third story and looked him in the eye. Timmy himself stopped moving. The two stared at each other for an excruciating eight minutes, silent and cold as two glaciers. Electricity crackled in the air between them. "Fine!" Roger shouted at last. "You can have your Tupperware bowl back! I'm sorry I borrowed the stupid thing in the first place!"
They say that 20 years after Roger died, the sidewalks still tasted like chili.
The smell of disillusionment wafted through the air. Roger caught a whiff and thought, "Hmmm, something's not right here." He got up from his armhair armchair and walked into the kitchen. Sure enough, the smell was coming from the onion soup, which was not nearly as savory as he had once dreamed it could be. This sort of thing had been happening to him too often lately, and this latest occurrence was more than he could take. He strode to the window, flung it open, pitched the pot of soup right out, and yelled above the screams of the now-burnt crowds below, "Enough! I'm tired of things not turning out the way I wanted them to! The Penguin's Curse must be broken!"
Some background, I suppose, is needed here. A few years previous, Roger had been the propietor of Antarctica's first chili diner. His divine recipe, with its tender meat, tasty broth, firm pasta, and unforgettable blend of spices that packed a punch and kept you coming back for more, was a favorite of research scientists and wildlife for miles around. But the out-of-this-world taste available only at Roger's was the object of intense hatred and jealousy from the greatest penguin witch doctor in history, Karen. She would come to the diner every day, never ordering anything, and she would sit in a booth in the corner and brood, shooting hateful glances over the counter at Roger. He knew she had some sort of problem with him, but he didn't want to bring it up, since she looked so forbidding and was a penguin. On the day he premiered his new "Glacier-melting Hot" recipe, something happened that let him know he had crossed the line. He walked into the kitchen to check on the soup, and when he looked into the cauldron, there was a large penguin sitting there in place of the chili! His first thought, of course, was that the penguin had eaten his entire batch, but upon closer inspection, it was actually a penguin-shaped culinary effigy! Before his eyes, the penguin melted into the blandest-tasting puddle of disappointment Roger had ever set tongue on. From that day on, Roger could make no more chili without the same sinister goop magically replacing it. He was forced to close up shop, move back to the states, and get a job extracting peanut chunks from chunky peanut butter to make smooth. But every single day after work, he tried to shake the Penguin's Curse, branching out into different varieties of soup, even going as far as fondue, spaghetti sauce, and on one occasion, a pot of boiling water with a chunk of styrofoam in it. But every recipe wound up the same, until the day it came to a head.
"The Penguin's Curse must be broken!" screamed Roger to the cold grey sky outside his apartment window. And without warning, Karen floated up from the ground below to Roger's third story and looked him in the eye. Timmy himself stopped moving. The two stared at each other for an excruciating eight minutes, silent and cold as two glaciers. Electricity crackled in the air between them. "Fine!" Roger shouted at last. "You can have your Tupperware bowl back! I'm sorry I borrowed the stupid thing in the first place!"
They say that 20 years after Roger died, the sidewalks still tasted like chili.
